Pushing Me Away
by Lady Jesca
Summary: It's Riley's turn to push...


Pushing Me Away (PG-17 for a naughty word)  
  
This is anther story in the Linkin Park Collection. It isn't a sequel, just another story with Linkin Park lyrics. This one is taken from the Linkin Park song called Pushing Me Away.  
  
This story takes place right around the Season 5 Into The Woods episode.  
  
Enjoy.  
  
**~**  
  
He shoved the clothes into the duffle bag with an angry thrust. His face was uncharacteristically angry as he looked around for other things to take. He had to pack light. This operation wasn't going to allow him the luxury of taking many things with him. He shoved another shirt in the bag.  
  
This was it. He knew it. Even before he was whisked away, part of him knew Buffy wouldn't be coming to him. Part of him knew that her pride would keep her from him. Her pride and that little problem of not loving him.  
  
Riley slowly sat on the bed. His mind damned him with various conversations.  
  
//Yeah. Right. Takes one to know, I s'pose. Least I still got the attitude. What've you got? A piercing glance? Face it, white bread, Buffy's got a type and you're not it. She likes us  
  
dangerous, rough, occasionally bumpy in the forehead region..."//  
  
Spike had been trying to fuck with his head, but he knew. Part of him knew what Spike said was true. She'd never stopped loving Angel. He narrowed his eyes at nothing in particular. She always would.  
  
//"She sure cries a lot less with you then she did with Angel."//  
  
Tears threatened, but he didn't allow them to fall.  
  
//"You know, all "my boyfriend's a vampire" crazy, crazy... Every day was, like, the end of the world. She doesn't get all worked up like that over you."//  
  
Dawn had meant well. She hadn't known that those were such powerful words for him.  
  
It seemed all he had known was pain from this relationship. Sitting there, thinking of her lack of interest lately, it was easy for him to forget happiness they had together. All he could think of was the pain. Pain he couldn't handle. Pain he couldn't ignore. It was worse than anything he'd ever experienced.  
  
//"Girl needs some monster in her man, and it's not in your nature. No matter how low you try to go."//  
  
He just wanted to hurt her. Like she had hurt him. Somewhere deep inside him, in a place he didn't want to recognize in his anger knew that she cared for him, even if she didn't love him. Well la-de-da. Any guilt he might have been struggling with about lashing out at Buffy was stilled by the part of him who believed what Spike had said was right. .  
  
Riley got up and went to his sparse CD collection. He'd give her something to remember him by. Something that she would be able to dwell on. Proof of her mistake. Her last mistake with him.  
  
**~**  
  
Buffy cried silently into her pillow. She had lost him. If she had only gotten there moments before. She cried some more.  
  
Buffy's head filled with the visions of him being bitten. But somehow, now she was beginning to think of this as her fault, despite Riley's protest that it was his own fault. She had driven him to that. To the arms of another. A vampire. A killer.  
  
She started to see things in a new light. Times when she could have called him; could have asked him for his help. As noble as Riley was, she knew her increasing distance hurt him, but he never said so. He never told her how he felt. How long would it have gone on?  
  
Buffy sat up in bed. She wiped her eyes with her arms. Her eyes idly scanned her room for something. Something to take the focus off of what was going on inside her. She frowned and stood up. She slowly walked to her CD player. There was a note on it. She picked it up and read it.  
  
Buffy,  
  
For you to remember the way I felt about you.  
  
Riley  
  
Buffy opened the CD player and saw a recorded CD. The shiny top of the CD gave her no indication as to what was on it. She closed it and pressed play, going to sit on her bed to listen.  
  
"I've lied to you The same way that I always do  
  
This is the last smile  
  
That I'll fake for the sake of being with you"  
  
Buffy inhaled sharply as if she'd been slapped.  
  
"Everything falls apart, even the people who never frown eventually break down  
  
The sacrifice of hiding in a lie  
  
Everything has to end, you'll soon find we're out of time left to watch it all unwind  
  
The sacrifice is never knowing"  
  
"Why I never walked away  
  
Why I played myself this way  
  
Now I see your testing me pushes me away"  
  
Tears streamed down her face. Is this how he felt? Like he was living a lie? Like he was hiding with his 'love' for her? Was it all a lie?  
  
"I've tried like you  
  
To do everything you wanted too  
  
This is the last time  
  
I'll take the blame for the sake of being with you"  
  
Buffy went to the CD player in real anger and pushed it violently off the table, making the CD skip and then stop. She fell to the floor of her room, her head in her hands and sobbed. The pain too much for her as she thought of what she had done to this once very nice, very normal boy.  
  
**~**  
  
Riley stared at the night. For the hundredth time he second-guessed his decision to leave that CD for her. She didn't come. Maybe she didn't come because of the CD. He shook his head. She didn't come because she didn't care. Still. She didn't love him. She never would.  
  
He had done the right thing. He pushed her from his mind and tried to focus on the mission at hand. He was more successful at that than pushing her from his heart.  
  
She was always better at that than him. 


End file.
